Mendoza not rushing to name ‘Dragon Head’

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Leandro Mendoza refused to name the son of a San Juan-based politician earlier tagged by police as the one behind the operations of a raided shabu laboratory in the municipality.

"We cannot name him as yet," Mendoza said when he was informed of a San Juan municipal council resolution asking him to name and arrest "Dragon Head," the code name of the suspect, so that the issue can be laid to rest.

"We are verifying and validating documents and reports reaching us," he said in a radio interview. "And right now, we are establishing the criminal connections of people we perceive to be linked to the illegal operation of the shabu lab."

Mendoza, at the same time, gave assurances that the PNP would not allow itself to be used to destroy anyone’s credibility, least of all critics of the administration.

The PNP would pursue its investigation on how the laboratory was able to operate for the past 10 years in San Juan, bailiwick of the family of deposed President Joseph Estrada, and would release its findings after cases have been filed in the proper courts, he stressed.

Meanwhile, police are also looking into the possibility that Estrada loyalists who stormed Malacañang Palace on Labor Day last year may have been high on drugs that came from the San Juan factory.

This angle was among those eyed by anti-narcotics agents looking into the delivery pipeline of the drug syndicate behind the laboratory, located at Araullo and Montessori streets in Barangay Addition Hills. The laboratory was raided last Friday.

"We are closely determining the possibility that the illegal drugs distributed to Estrada followers on the eve of the May 1 riot in Malacañang came from the shabu lab because it was of a large quantity," an anti-narcotics official said, noting that the drug could have come from the main source.

At least 40 of Estrada loyalists arrested during the May 1 riots tested positive for alcohol and shabu use. Elements of the Western Police District also conducted a probe to trace the source of the illegal drugs, but to no avail.

However, the PNP intelligence group released later the names of some 30 alleged Estrada supporters, mostly Chinese-Filipino businessmen, who financed the so-called EDSA III. Included in the list was Peping Suarez, Estrada’s kumpadre, who allegedly runs jueteng in San Juan.

But Narcotics Group (Narcgroup) chief Director Efren Fernandez said the EDSA III-shabu lab angle remains speculative.

"We are carefully working on the case and there’s no indication as yet that the San Juan lab was the source of the shabu distributed to the Estrada loyalists last May 1," Fernandez told The STAR in an interview.

This angle, however, appeared to be bolstered by findings that the same politician’s son was seen on the eve of the riots at the EDSA Shrine, inciting rallyists to storm Malacañang.

"He was there with his bodyguards. And all of them appeared to be high on drugs," said another narcotics official who refused to be identified.

Police have refused to touch the politician’s son for fear of an Estrada loyalist backlash.

Estrada’s sons, half brothers Jude Estrada and San Juan Mayor Joseph Victor Ejercito, came out Monday denying involvement in the town’s shabu lab.

Mayor Ejercito even called on the PNP not to allow itself to be used for political purposes.

Mendoza, for his part, said their findings that the lab operated for a decade was based on the passports of the Chinese arrested during the raid, which indicated they had been in and out of the country for the past 10 years.